Theo sat up as the last wound disappeared. His eyes expressed mingled pity and an unexpected sadness. "No, you're not insane."
"Then you're…"
"A nephilim. Immortal."
I swallowed hard. "And I'm…"
"A virtue. Soon to be immortal, as well, once you are accepted into the Court of Divine Blood." He got to his feet, and pulled me to mine, holding onto my hands.
It was too much, too much to take in at once. I shook my head, not at what Theo was saying, but at the fact that my brain was trying to process all this new information so quickly.
I just couldn't believe it was real…and yet, finally, I admitted to myself that the evidence piled up indisputably pointed to one conclusion: everything I had believed impossible, everything I knew could simply not be, now suddenly was. It was as if a whole new part of life opened up before me, beckoning me to go forth and explore all the mysteries it had to share.
It was frightening as hell.
"And that teenager, that kid who was here tearing you apart…"
Theo gave me a slight smile, the corners of his mouth curling up in a manner that, despite my bemusement, made my stomach lurch uncomfortably. "…was no teenager, but a demon, which you handily defeated."
"I hate to interrupt, but I feel it necessary to correct that statement." Noelle got up from where she had been looking at the wall, and came over to us. "Portia didn't defeat the demon."
Theo's thumbs were rubbing softly over the tops of my hands. He frowned at Noelle. "What do you mean she didn't defeat it? I saw her do it."
"No," Noelle said with a sigh. "What you saw her do was completely annihilate its physical form. I didn't send the demon back to Abaddon. I didn't have to—she so completely destroyed its human form that it was sent back by necessity."
Theo's eyes widened as both he and Noelle looked at me.
"He was hurting Theo," I told them both. "I wasn't going to just stand there and let him beat Theo up. Not to mention which, you both were egging me on to do something."
"We're not chastising you for defeating the demon," Noelle said with a watery smile. "It's the fact that you destroyed its mortal form that has us in a situation."
"What sort of a situation?" I asked, pulling my hands from Theo's. It was too distracting being in physical contact with him. My brain didn't want to think about anything but him when he was touching me.
"Which demon was it?" Theo asked Noelle.
She ignored my question to answer his. "Nefere. It belonged to Bael."
"Salus invenitur," Theo swore, rubbing his forehead.
"Do I want to know who Bael is?" I asked, rubbing the goose bumps on my arms. I was starting to get cold standing in the crypt in nothing but my teddy and shoes.
"Bael is the premiere prince of Abaddon," Noelle answered, her eyes on Theo.
"Abaddon being hell?"
"Yes," Theo answered, his face grave. My stomach wadded itself up into a dense ball, and seemed to drop to my feet. "Bael does not tolerate abuse of his legions. He will summon us before him to answer for the damage we did to his demon's form. Come, you are cold. I will take you back to the pub."
He held out a hand for me, clearly intending me to follow him out of the room.
"Wait a sec," I said, rubbing my arms again. "Why can't you just zap me back the way I came?"
Noelle gave me a rueful smile. "Teleporting is a temporary power given to the trial proctors. It summons, but does not send, I'm afraid."
"Oh great," I grumbled as I took Theo's hand and allowed him to lead me out of the crypt. His hand was warm, his fingers strong and reassuring. "Now I'm gallivanting who knows where in my teddy. This is so the image I want to remember England by. I don't understand why killing a demon is bad. They're demonic, right? So why isn't a good thing that I blasted it to kingdom come?"
"It's a bit complicated," Noelle said with genuine regret in her voice. "I must go back to the Court and submit the results of the trial. That, at least, you passed." She stopped at the doorway to what appeared to be the nave of a church, her gaze moving from me to Theo. "Good luck. I wish I could help you, but it would be a violation of Guild law."
"I understand." Theo released me long enough to shake her hand, thanking her for her help.
She gave me a brief, bright smile. "I hope the rest of the trials go well. I think you'll be a very nice addition to the Court."
She hurried off before I could respond. Theo escorted me out of the (thankfully unoccupied) church and into his car before I got too chilled. I wrapped myself up in the car blanket he kept in his trunk, and shivered the entire fifteen-minute drive to the pub, wondering the whole way there what had happened to the nice, orderly, sensible life I had made for myself.
Chapter 9
"I think I'm handling this very well," I said after a few minutes of watching the night slide by the car window. We were approaching the town and the familiar humpbacked bridge. "Mind you, the only other available option is to completely lose my mind, so I don't have much of a choice, but still, I believe I'm taking this all very, very well. I'm not screaming or laughing hysterically, or even crying, although somehow, I feel like doing all three."
He patted my blanket-covered knee. "I appreciate the fact that you are restraining your hysterical tendencies. This is a…" He hesitated for a moment. "…difficult situation."
"This prince guy, you mean? I have to tell you, Theo, I don't believe in hell any more than I do in heaven."
He drove in silence for a few minutes. "Just as the Court of Divine Blood is not heaven, so Abaddon is not hell, although it is commonly referred to as such. The prince you refer to is the head of all the seven demon lords who rule Abaddon, and I'm sorry to say that they do very much exist."
The skeptic in me wanted to argue the point, but I reminded myself that I was still in the process of coming to grips with the idea that there was more to life than I imagined, and thus such an argument could wait.
Not to mention the fact that I now had to admit to Sarah that she was right and I was wrong.
"So what is this demon lord guy likely to do? He can't hurt us, can he?"
Theo laughed a particularly mirthless laugh. It made a little chill skitter down my back. "He's likely to demand reparation for the demon's form. Such things do not come cheap, or so the demon lords would have us believe."
We turned into the pub's now-crowded parking lot. "Wait a second…are you saying I just destroyed the demon's body, but not the demon itself?"
"Yes. Demons can't be destroyed as such…their power changes into a different form, but isn't actually obliterated, if you understand what I mean."
"Of course I understand. It's the first law of thermodynamics." I wrapped the blanket tightly around myself as I got out of the car, smiling at Theo's look of confusion. "Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It can be transformed from one form of energy to another, but the sum total is always the same. What you're saying is that a demon is made up of some sort of energy, so it makes perfect sense to me that the energy of the demon is itself not able to be destroyed. I could go on to draw an analogy about what the physical form is like, but unless you're into physics, it would probably seem like overkill."
Theo laughed, a warm, deep laugh that rolled around me, filling me with an incredible light feeling that I identified with some surprise as happiness. "You have the most deliciously analytical mind."
"Well, I guess it's better to have you admire my mind over my breasts, like the other men I've dated."
A little flame of desire burst into being in his eyes. "Oh, I admire your breasts greatly, have no fear. But I do appreciate the desire you have to understand how the world works, rather than just blindly accepting it."